Alex Valente

How do you write a tune in words?
Or, indeed, the smell of morning.
The sound of thoughts
buzzing in your head,
is it like a swarm of bees?
But ideas are silent
until they crash, and scream.
Not that silent after all.

I woke up today
and suddenly
nothing happened,
and everything didn’t.

So I had breakfast.
Bathed in new light,
robed in the rays of the sun,
I sat in my backyard,
with a bowl of cereals.

Two, three, maybe four bees
buzzing around my head
as if sounding my thoughts.
Or maybe, just maybe,
curious about my cereals.

So I ate my breakfast.
Humming the words of a tune,
enjoying the morning’s smell
and the idea of silence.

——
This poem was one of the winners of the Barefoot in the Park competition.